Fintech unicorn Mobikwik, which is hoping to come out with an IPO, would have added about 24 million users by the end of FY23, Upasana Taku, co-founder of the company, told FE. This was after the Gurugram-based startup already grew its user base by around 23 million in the preceding fiscal.

The Bajaj Finance-backed company, which currently boasts of a total user base of about 135 million, 90% of whom have a monthly income of less than Rs 50,000, has also deferred its plans to go public by at least 12 more months, citing unfavourable market conditions. Mobikwik’s IPO approvals lapsed in November last year and it will have to reapply for the process now. The company had planned a Rs 1,900-crore IPO, which included a fresh issue of Rs 1,500 crore and an offer for sale (OFS) component of Rs 400 crore. Irrespective of when the company goes public, there will not be a change in the company’s IPO size, Taku said.

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“Adding 20-24 million users in this financial year is an easy target for us. About 80% of our new users come to us organically, because of our large merchant network and the daily life use cases we are present in,” Taku added. With a growing user base and an expanding merchant network base of over 4 million, the company — which focuses majorly on the users in the Tier 3 and beyond regions — was hopeful of putting itself on the path to full year profitability from the upcoming financial year.

“In FY22, we had two profitable quarters, and in FY23 we wanted to have as many profitable quarters as possible, but it has been a fairly difficult year from a macro and markets perspective. So this fiscal (FY23), just the current quarter will be profitable for us,” Taku said. “However, in FY24, maybe in some quarters we will break even and in some we will be healthier from a profit perspective, but we want to at least be profitable each quarter next year and are confident of that happening.”

To strengthen its income streams, over the past quarters, Mobikwik has moved away from being just a payments platform to a more digital bank-like play. And now about 50% of its revenues come from selling financial products like insurance, mutual funds and others. While its traditional business, payments, accounted for the remaining. Low take rates, at around 1.7%, from only facilitating payments was another reason for the company to diversify its offerings.

Speaking on the room for growth, full KYC was done for about half of Mobikwik’s 135 million users, but only 30 million users were approved for credit and investment products and of the 30 million, only 4-5 million users were actively availing investment and credit products. “And the revenue share from financial products distribution will only keep increasing over the years,” Taku said.

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In FY22, the company saw its operating revenue jump 80% year-on-year (y-o-y) to Rs 527 core, from Rs 288 crore in FY21, but its losses also increased from Rs 111 crore to Rs 128 crore during the same period. Even as Mobikwik would have ended FY23 in the red, it is now settling for a more moderate growth rate, Taku said without revealing specific numbers. She added that Mobikwik was currently losing money only on salaries and infrastructure but was profitable at a contribution margin level.

The company plans to register at least a few profitable quarters before it goes public, which, it thinks, would help Mobikwik make a “successful public market debut even if the markets were moderately favourable”, Taku said.